The National Institute of Engineering (NIE) here will become the NIE University consequent to the State government notifying the NIE University Act 2019.
This was stated here on Sunday by Srinath Bhatni, president of the NIE Society, who also announced that the Board of Governors of the NIE had designated D.A. Prasanna as the Founding Chancellor of NIE University.
He will assume charge after the State government declares the date on which the NIE University would come into existence.
The new campus of the NIE University will be at Tandya industrial area, about 3 km from the Mysuru airport at Mandakalli, and 50 acres has been acquired from the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board for the purpose.
Mr. Prasanna, who is the Chancellor-designate, said they envisaged an investment of ₹200 crore in the next five years, of which the bulk of the amount will be spent on creating infrastructure.
The cost of the land itself is about ₹45 crore. The master plan and the architect’s design has also been approved by the board which is awaiting the final inspection by a committee of secretaries of the government which will assess the preparations before giving the final go-ahead for the NIE University to commence functioning and call itself a varsity.
Mr. Prasanna said the NIE University will focus on multi-disciplinary approach to solving problems of the society and identify key areas of engineering in which they have domain expertise for research and development.
University vision
Given the inherent strengths of the institute, the vision was to strive to be among the top 10 universities in the country in 10 years and among the top 10 universities in the world in 20 years, said Mr. Prasanna who is an alumnus of the NIE with an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad, and more than 25 years of experience in Wipro, Manipal University etc. “If institutions like MIT and Caltech could pioneer innovations to change the world, there was no reason why an Indian institution in Mysuru could not do the same given the city’s academic ambience and educational history,” Mr. Prasanna said.
N.R. Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys and one of the Directors on the NIE Board, said the NIE University had to play an important role in the changing technological world and expressed confidence of achieving the stated visions under Mr. Prasanna given his blend of corporate and academic experience.
The NIE, which was established in 1946, is the second oldest engineering college in the State and was granted autonomous status in 2007.
